challenges
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My Year So Far
My previous post was in January of this year. It's just turned June. Where did the time go?
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Ki kote m ye?
It is weird to me that I can read these materials and kinda get the gist of them, but golly they are way more complex (to me) as an English-speaking student who has so little comprehension of Haitian culture and idioms.
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Sometimes our brains tell the truth while our emotions lie
I felt so slow and ignorant. I’m not that advanced, not at all, and I am a slow learner who is just not going to get much further along than I am. I’m feeling so discouraged.
- #WakingUpWhite, American Exceptionalism, challenges, faith, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, work
#WakingUpWhite Chapter 25: Belonging
This chapter is about the tendency of white folks to feel like they belong everywhere. Ms. Irving focuses on the school environment, because she was a volunteer or participant at so many levels, including being on committees to help bring about and embrace “diversity.”
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#WakingUpWhite Chapter 22: Why Do I Always End Up with White People?
Ever wonder why it is that even when good people want to fix things, nothing really gets fixed but a lot of talk passes by? I grew up in the fabulous 50s and 60s, and I remember the talk on how we were well on on way to fixing racism. “Just a little while longer,” I heard, “and we’ll get this discrimination eliminated. Just a few years more and all God’s children will be playing together.” Spoiler: It didn’t happen that way. The effort needed to make change happen is much, much great than the effort needed to think about making change happen. We can wish all we want. We…
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News and Updates
So here’s what’s going down… Some of you might know that I’ve been thinking about and writing about issues of race and equality for a long time. I’ve been vocal about my beliefs and vocal about my insistence that we all must repent and change. A few months ago an online publication, Our Human Family, reached out to me to begin writing for them. They had been reading my work and were interested in what I was saying, and they considered my work to be helpful and healing for the conciliation of us all. As they put it in their mission statement, “OUR HUMAN FAMILY exists as a safe digital…
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When the Past Tries to Reclaim the Present
Last night the hemlock tried to nail the house again. This time it failed. We live in an area that is mixed rural and forest. Just down the street is the river, and across the river is an escarpment that’s the outlier of the Cascades. Western Hemlock, Douglas Fir, and Big Leaf Maple are the most common big trees here, with scattered alder and cottonwood in the understory, especially of disturbed land. The trees used to grow big here—we started as a logging and milling town until we ran out of trees, then switched to agriculture—hops and dairy as the most common. Now we still have some dairy farms, but…
- #WakingUpWhite, Books, Celebrate Recovery, challenges, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, racism
If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see
James Baldwin* said this, I’m told: “If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.” I can’t find the source of this quote, but it is widely attributed to him, and as I see no one protesting that these are not his words, I’m gonna go with it. Which leads me to the main purpose of this post: to introduce you to a new project I’ll be undertaking with a few friends, a journey to read the book “Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race,” by Debby Irving. I’ve not read this before, so the plan is for each…
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Does History Matter?
I’m involved in life, like many people, and one thing that fascinates me is how we forget our past when it’s inconvenient but trot out certain myths and memes because they are “real” and important. For example, George Washington is the father of our country (and of little else because he was physically sterile). We have the Washington Monument, Mt. Rushmore, his face on our currency, and even a state named after him (no, not Georgia). We celebrate his birthday along with Abraham Lincoln’s in “Presidents Day,” and we revere his memory. Yet Washington was a white slaver. He held humans as property in his labor camps, and pursued them…
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Chief of Sinners
Recently I joined a group of people who are working diligently to expose, root out, combat, and overturn racism in America, most specifically in the American church. As a member of this group, I am asked to listen and to learn before I speak, and to contribute seldom, whether it is words or in reactions. (“Love your emotional breakdown! So honest!”) I’ll confess it’s hard to handle, because I mean so well! I’m one of the people who’s working for healing; how could you not want my participation and my insight and my support? How could you not want my contributions and my energy and my outside-the-group-but-inside-as-an-ally enthusiasm? How indeed?…
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Is Paris Worth the Price of a Mass?
Shocking revelation:No political party or interest group is without bias, and that includes conservative Evangelicals. Also shocking:No political party or interest group (including Evangelicals) represents themselves or their opponents perfectly. And also shocking:Political parties or interest groups (including Evangelicals) that literally betray their primary authenticizing principles are quite rightly seen as hypocritical. If Evangelicals hold to the truth that God is love, neighbors are valuable, children are treasures, the poor are the cherished of God, the rich deserve no elevation but only pity, and that truth and justice are the especial delights of God–and yet by their actions they betray every one of these because “we must have the fifth…
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Ruminations on Acts 4–Do Before You Speak
I don’t often write up my thoughts as I read the Christian scriptures. Though I’m a white Evangelical of long practice, I’ve found recently that listening is far more important than speaking. Today, however, was interesting, as I got a chance to tune in to one of my favorite long-distance churches and pastors, Pastor Andre Mitchell of Deliverance Temple, in Muncie, Indiana, and was able to listen to much of his preaching just before my own church services. There was a powerful synchronicity in the two experiences—Pastor Mitchell spoke on a theme of “Stand Your Ground,” and in my own church we had a lectio divina on Acts 4. Now…
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Naked, Partisan Politics: A Primer
I wrote this as a quick response to several white men criticizing the 2017 Women’s March on Washington who were arguing that the party of the left (the Democrats) should more fully embrace the plight of the “blue collar worker” & abandon the idea of intersectionality and allyship with people of color, women, the disabled, those in the LGBTQIA spectrum, and others historically marginalized by white American culture. This is not a perfect essay, but I wanted to highlight some things. I don’t think these men were honest; I think they were attempting to split progressives and moderate Democrats. So my response isn’t so much to attempt to convince them,…
- Celebrate Recovery, challenges, education, faith, family, justice, Life Recovery Skills, musings, racism, writing
The Non-Whiteness of Jesus
I got to thinking the other day about how we see Jesus and Jesus’ teachings expressed in the lives of his followers. And I began thinking about how hard it is to reconcile our Christian behavior with our Christ. Traditionally, orthodox Christianity means a religion centered around the Christ of the New Testament, where what Jesus said and taught and did forms the central, defining properties of the religion. Christ did not hate the Jews or want them eliminated or gassed. Christ did not hate black Africans. In fact, some of the first disciples were black Africans. (You can look this one up. You’ll be astonished at what you were…
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Choosing Among Kaepernick, Sherman, Wilson, Newton, Marshall, and Others
Recently Colin Kaepernick has made a visible attempt to express his own evaluation of his person and his place in American society. Colin Kaepernick is black, and as a black American he is choosing to remain quietly seated or down on one knee when the national flag is displayed at the beginning of football games. This has engendered much discussion and much reaction, ranging from applause to opposition to outright hatred that “he is not respecting the flag and our nation’s military.” Some of his football peers have chimed in, some to say that such protest is not needed. Some have not commented. Some have supported him in words, and…
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Respect–Given and Earned, Not Demanded and Taken
To say to a bank “I expect you to keep my money safe and not just throw it willy-nilly into the street” isn’t disrespect. It’s respecting the word of the bank and demanding it holds true to that promise it makes to you, to keep your money safe. To say to a restaurant “I expect you to serve me food that’s well-prepared and safe to eat, and not just shove crap from a garbage can onto a plate and drop it in front of me” isn’t disrespect. It’s respecting the word of the restaurant and demanding it holds true to its promise it makes to you, to serve you well-prepared,…
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To Be Enough: Rest and Restoration
As allies of our brothers and sisters, we might not always be on the front lines. It is not a struggle where we as allies should be at the front and in charge. It is a struggle where we amplify and encourage and validate, where we listen and where we stand alongside. It is not the main struggle–we are the supply wagons and support staff and the community of brothers and sisters. We can do what we can, without taking charge. It is not about us, but the work does require us to be about the work. And we must not go farther than we can go. We must take…
- challenges, essays, faith, history, justice, Life Recovery Skills, musings, questions, racism, writing
A Jury of One’s Peers
You may (or may have not) seen video circulating recently showing the last moments of black American men shot by American cops. Some of my friends think we should see them. Some of my friends think we should not. I respect them all so much, and those who are against seeing them have my full support, as those who encourage us to show these deaths. Rather than come down one way another, here’s what I think, if my opinion is worth anything at all: I think we need to do what we think we need to do. I won’t demand people watch the videos (and I don’t share them, myself,…
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A Review of "Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism"
So this book is several things. One, it is a book of theology of the kingdom of the Messiah. Dr. Hart lays out the plans of God through Jesus Christ in instituting his kingdom, which is topsy-turvy: it is not power-based, it is not authority-based, it is not self-based. It is, instead, based upon love and community, honesty and commitment, risk and sacrifice and the great great reward of connection with Jesus. For that alone, you should read this book. It is also a book about America, plainly stated, as it was, and is, and perhaps may not always be. It is a book about how we Christians have acquired…
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Forgiveness—What Is Possible? What Is Demanded?
I heard a story on NPR the other day. Seems that in Maryland there’s a push to review the sentences of those who were convicted of murder in the last 40 years based upon the Unger decision. Several people who were affected by these murders—being the family and friends and co-workers—were asked for their thoughts. Did they forgive these people? One lady—and I am not picking on her—said essentially that she forgave the man who killed her family member some 40 years ago, but she could not forget and that, as a murderer, she thought he deserved to stay in jail—that his release, even though mandated by mistakes in prosecution,…
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What Must We Then Do?
I’m a Christian, and I also believe in the power of reason. I don’t think anyone is convinced to switch sides on any of the culture-war issues based on emotional arguments that simply escalate into a battle of “who has the loudest voice.” I believe that the American Christian church of today has been bamboozled into thinking that it is enough to be against abortion, and that as long as we stop that from happening, the rest of our lives can remain indistinguishable from someone who has no power and no life of their own. An American Christian has a different vocabulary and a different habit for 11:00 on Sunday…
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Being Jesus to the World We Live In
We always had the chance to be Christian. To be like Christ. To be loving and sacrificial, to care for widows and orphans, to feed the hungry, heal the sick, love the lost, to put others first, to speak, teach, and live peace. That opportunity was always there. Instead we chose to ratchet up our hatred and dislike and anger in order to show the world that *we didn’t like gay marriage*, no sir, and that was the most important thing to focus on. We chose to make sure that everyone knew how much we hated those sinners and that sin. Think about that. We always had the chance to…
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Christians, We’re Doing It Wrong (Again)
I read in the news today where a family in Oklahoma is being threatened with death for the crime of . . . protesting the distribution of religious materials in secular, state-run primary schools. Now, I’m a Christian. I’d like people to know that, and to know my Savior, and to know the God of the Universe. I will be more than happy to talk to you about that. But I am also a citizen of the secular United States, with its secular institutions, and its secular schools. No one religion can be permitted to represent the faith of all United States citizens. No one religion can speak for all…
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Awash in a Sea of Tears
Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthian Believers, Chapter 10, lines 3-6 “For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (ESV) “The truth is that, although of course we lead normal human lives, the battle we are fighting is on the spiritual level. The very weapons we use are not those of human…
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A Poem for Advent
America 2012 Twenty children were shot Charlotte Bacon, 6and six adults in one of Daniel Barden, 7the greatest tragedies Olivia Engel, 6in American history. Josephine Gay, 7Unfortunately, it was Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 6not the greatest tragedy, Dylan Hockley, 6for we have had mass Madeleine F. Hsu, 6shootings in Columbine Catherine V. Hubbard, 6and Virginia Tech and Chase Kowalski, 7Aurora and Portland and… Jesse Lewis, 6The list goes on and on, James Mattioli, 6and while we are sometimes Grace McDonnell, 7speechless and sometimes Emilie Parker, 6saddened, it is never enough Jack Pinto, 6to move us to take action. Noah Pozner, 6We think we are powerless Caroline Previdi, 6against guns,…
